The Bomber Boys by Travis L. Ayres

aircraft adorned with fresh patches of the previous day’s flak damage, and to do this not once but again and again and again required resolve, dedication to duty and a special kind of courage. Later, when asked how and why they did it, many Eighth Air Force airmen would modestly reply, “I was just doing my job.”
    For Tony Teta, sometimes the missions had been back-to-back for two or three days in a row. Sometimes there had been enemy fighters—and almost always deadly flak. The danger of collision had been a constant presence. After his first mission, Tony had learned to look only to the end of the next. He had placed his trust in God, his crewmates and himself—in the end, it had been enough.

After the War
    Anthony Teta returned home to Hamden, Connecticut, in September of 1945 with his body and spirit whole. Not long after the long-awaited reunion with his parents, Alex and Mary, and his brother and sister, John and Josephine, Tony’s attention was stolen by a pretty local girl. Her name was Rosalie Sazano.
    Tony and Rosey became inseparable, but in August 1946, military duty once again took the young lieutenant to a foreign land. By April of the following year Tony was back in the States, and he became a civilian two months later. The couple’s relationship was rekindled, and on October 27, 1951, Tony and Rosalie were married.
    Tony tried a range of occupations in the early years of marriage,
including produce retailer and long-distance truck driver, but eventually he was fortunate to land a job with the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company. His natural enthusiasm and his organizational and problem-solving skills propelled Tony up the ranks at NY, NH & H. He spent thirty-six years with the company (which became Penn Central and part of Conrail), most of his career as a train master responsible for a large area of track encompassing New Haven, Danbury, Hartford and much of eastern New York State.
    Retiring from the railroad business in 1991, Tony spent his days caring for the horses, ponies and various other creatures that inhabited the Tetas’ small ranch in Northford, Connecticut. He and Rosalie felt blessed to have their two daughters, Mary Ellen and Dora Ann, sons-in-law, three grandchildren and one great-grandchild living close by. Rosalie was always quick to say her husband had lost none of his sense of adventure, and she marveled at his energy as he went about his ranch chores. The couple had enjoyed fifty-six years of marriage when Rosalie passed away in January of 2008. Nowadays, Tony still stables a few neighbors’ horses and enjoys attending the University of Connecticut Women Huskies basketball games with his good friend and fellow Bomber Boy George Ahern.
    Jerry Chart became a research biologist and pharmacologist after his return to civilian life. He spent most of his working career with Ciba in New Jersey and New York. He fell in love with a pretty girl named Therese, and the couple married in 1953. Jerry and Terri became parents in 1954 when their daughter Kate was born. Five sons (Greg, Tom, Joseph, Geoffrey and John) followed and then eight grandchildren. After retirement in 1985, Jerry and his wife, Terri, lived in the New York- Connecticut-New Jersey area for ten more years before moving to Helena, Montana, at the urging of two sons who already
lived there. Jerry enjoys fishing in the cold clear Montana streams and wishes they had moved to the state even sooner.
    John Cuffman returned to his beloved Tennessee after the war. He attended George Peabody University in Nashville and attained a Bachelor of Science degree. The former tail gunner’s main civilian career was as a longtime agent for the National Insurance Company (which owned WSM-AM radio and The Grand Ole Opry ). He and his wife, Virginia, had two sons, one daughter and five grandchildren. Through the years, John Cuffman and Tony Teta maintained a long-distance but close friendship that continued until John’s death in